determing determinism (if it's such a thing)

[I realized there was no context for my earlier posts today. Well, here it is:]

Determinists may only agree on one thing: reality operates on a causal system of rules, laws, and axioms. Every effect must have a particular cause. Humans begin to learn this empirically from the moment they enter the world, yet are never able to fully understand or master this phenomenon. Our lives are a constant demystification process of how our actions, thoughts, and individual lives affect the greater world around us. Perhaps we will never discover the ‘grand unified theory of everything’ – if it exists at all – and though it seems that we approach enlightened sensibilities about existence, morality, and science individually, it is unlikely that we will ever understand the objective totality. However, we may be free to ask what these ‘universal laws’ really are, and if they really are universal.

Scientific theory suggests that the laws of the universe are natural, intrinsic to existence, and are immutable both in their reaches and application. Modern physics boasts the ability to predict motion, relying on consistent unchangeable constraints like gravity and mass. Quantum mechanics, a controversial albeit scientific field, suggests that we are made up of small, fundamental particles which necessarily govern the autonomy of the larger bodies that they create. Even our best understanding of cosmology, beginning with the Big Bang Theory, supposes that the universe – since its very inception – has operated through a system of cause and effect. ...

And we can see the cause/effect paradigm on whatever scale we choose, whether we are explicating the relationship between studying poorly and receiving correlative grades or observing electrons crash into each other, affecting space as they move through the outer-shell of atomic particles.

The philosopher’s world of ‘hard determinism’ is inextricably linked with the notion that the world is fundamentally causal; everything therefore is connected by a chain of cause and effect, where effects in turn become new causes and reality cycles through this process indefinitely. There is, ergo, no such thing as true ‘autonomy’ for the hard determinist. Neither particles nor peoples are truly able to avoid the inexorable confines of their nature, which is beholden to the fundamental law(s) that govern everything. Though we may not know exactly what these laws are, hard determinists argue that every action and occurrence in the universe may be traced to a root cause (or causes) that necessitated a particular effect. In a relationship where causes are inseparable from there effects (and vice versa), the deterministic world supposes that an event could not have happened differently if given the same conditions.

Hard determinism is an exiguous, inflexible view of reality; we don’t live in “a garden of forking paths,” (Kane 19) as suggested by Robert Kane in A Contemporary Introduction to Free Will, but rather on a linear, absolute path that always tends the same way and never could have been otherwise. Thus, all events and occurrences are predetermined by their causes, and their causes are predetermined by their causes’ causes. Theoretically, this cycle may be regressed infinitely. People, existing only for seven thousand years, are therefore mere effects of larger causes. They are not autonomous self-determined creatures that have amnesty from the causal chain that created them. Personalities, therefore, may be explained purely in terms of their scientific, cultural, political, and evolutionary constraints; “the question, that is, of whether he became the person he is of his own free will seems to depend on whether other constraints were or were not entirely determining [his person]” (Kane 2005). In the world of hard determinism, there can be no room for free will.

On some level, however, the hard and fast rule of cause/effect is still a theory. Though determinism might be theoretically convincing at first, its implications and consequences (ironically) create metaphysical problems for the human being, especially if he believes in his own autonomy. This essay will outline four major problems posed by the hard determinist’s world. It is important to note that the epistemic problems resulting from determinism are not necessarily a rhetorical proof of free will. Perhaps several problems with determinism combined with the incompatibilist consequence argument may present an opportunity for such a proof. Regardless, we must constantly keep in mind how a ‘free will’ paradigm answers the inconsistencies present in determinism .

Ultimately, hard determinism falls apart because it is a counterproductive, highly irrational, morally dangerous, and overtly inflexible system. Later, it is my argument that the determinist system jeopardizes meaning in the lives of individuals and takes away the moral progress of any society. In the blog entries below, I'll look at the pragmatic and theoretical ramifications of a world defined by determinism, starting with the introspective human experience and gently moving outward. My hope is to shatter any inkling that it might be true or auspicious, beyond any point of recognition.